Ngati Whatua and the Treaty
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Several Ngāti
Whātua chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, including Te Tirarau,
his brother Taurau, Te Roha from Te Uri-o-Hau (and Te Parawhau), Hāmiora
Pakikoraha of Te Roroa, and Te Tinana, Te Rēweti and Āpihai Te Kawau
of Ngāti Whātua-o-Ōrākei. Yet Ngāti Whātua lost
substantial tracts of land through pre-1840 claims, dubious Crown purchases,
the operations of the Native Land Court and other means.
In 1842 a group of
Māori took action against a storekeeper believed to have desecrated a
burial ground by taking human remains. As punishment, Te Uri-o-Hau chiefs were
forced to relinquish over 2,000 hectares of land without compensation.
In Te Roroa’s tribal area
the government exerted pressure, used questionable methods (including the
misrepresentation of total area and boundaries), and abused various statutory
powers when purchasing most of their lands during the 1870s. They also ignored
oral and written agreements to provide reserves for Māori. Te Taoū suffered
equally harshly. Nearly 60% of land at Kaipara Harbour passed out of Māori
control before 1865. Of the remaining Kaipara lands that went before the Native
Land Court before 1891, a further 55% was lost by 1908.
Over several decades
human remains were wrongfully removed from Te Roroa and Te Uri-o-Hau burial
grounds.
The
chief Āpihai Te Kawau signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Manukau Harbour on
20 March 1840. He did so after inviting Governor William Hobson to live in Auckland,
hoping that he would protect the land and its people. Unfortunately, the
relocation of the capital from Russell to Auckland meant there was extra
pressure for land. Ngāti Whātua sold 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) to
the Crown for cash and goods worth £341; six months later, 44 acres (17
hectares) were sold by the Crown at public auction for £24,275. The remainder
was sub-divided and sold for over £72,000, mostly within two years. By 1850
most of the tribe’s accessible land in Auckland was gone.
By
1900 Ngāti Whātua were reduced to living at Ōkahu Bay in
Ōrākei. The government and the Auckland City Council continued to
apply pressure to remove them. A main sewerage pipe was built across the front
of the village at Ōkahu Bay. That same village was refused connection to
the city’s fresh water. The last inhabitants were evicted in the early 1950s,
their houses demolished and their meeting house burned. Only the church and
cemetery remained.
Ngāti Whātua
have been at the forefront of action over tribal land loss since 1881, when
Paora Tūhaere hosted a pan-national assembly of Māori chiefs at
Kohimarama. Nearly 100 years later, in 1977–78, Joe Hawke led a 506-day
occupation of Bastion Point. However, Ngāti Whātua protesters were
evicted from the ancestral lands they had hoped to get back. Media coverage of
that protest raised awareness among New Zealanders of Māori grievances
over land issues. A great deal of progress has been made since then. In 1992
the Waitangi Tribunal released findings supporting Te Roroa’s claims, and the
tribe now plays a significant role in their region. Action from the Crown has
also been positive, offering guardianship of Tāne Mahuta, the largest
surviving New Zealand kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest, north of Dargaville.
Te Uri-o-Hau settled
their grievances with the Crown in 2000. Te Taoū claims were before the
Waitangi Tribunal in 2004. Ngāti Whātua received financial
compensation for their losses at Ōrākei, and the tribe now play a
prominent part in the cultural and political life of Auckland city. The tribe
have also lodged a further claim over much of Auckland. At perhaps one of the
most poignant events in Auckland’s recent history, over 15,000 people gathered
at Ōkahu Bay at dawn on millennium day, 1 January 2000, to welcome the
modern Ngāti Whātua canoe Māhuhu-ki-te-rangi into the
same bay from which, 50 years earlier, the tribe had been evicted.